Mexican Recipes
498 recipes found

Basic Tamales

Baja Ceviche

Family-Meal Fish Tacos
This is a fast, satisfying fish dinner with Cajun flavors. Chad Shaner cooked it for staff meals when he was a line cook at Union Square Cafe in Manhattan. It was, he said shyly when The Times talked to him in 2013, one of the restaurant staff's favorites. “Everyone loves taco day,” he said. The recipe is not particularly Mexican. Shaner hails from Smyrna, Del., and served in the Navy before he went to cooking school. He makes a forceful kind of American food that borrows its flavors from wherever they are strongest. His fish tacos, he said, are something he cooked up one night with his brother, Andy, a bartender. “We were looking for intense flavor,” he said of the Cajun-style rub they used on the fish.

Picadillo

Grilled Pacific Halibut With Mango Salsa
This sweet and spicy salsa goes beautifully with a firm, white fish like halibut. Make sure your mango is very ripe. Mangos are a good source of potassium, vitamin A and beta-carotene. You would think that such a sweet fruit would be high in calories, but because of all the water in a juicy mango, the caloric content is relatively low — about 135 calories in a whole mango, according to nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden.

Tuna with Mexican Table-Sauce

Creamy Rice Casserole

Chipotle Hamburgers On Gorditas

Chicken Tamales Leopoldo

Spinach Salad With Mushrooms and Hibiscus Flower Vinaigrette

Polkanes

Arroz Con Leche
This recipe for arroz con leche came to us from Veronica Garcia of Houston. The original came from her maternal grandmother, but Ms. Garcia has since made a few adjustments: a little less sugar, a split vanilla bean and no raisins. But she still soaks and rinses the rice two times, making it a little lighter than a traditional rice pudding.

Watermelon & Tomato Salsa
Sweet, juicy watermelon and spicy chiles combine to create a surprising summer salsa with a kick. It goes especially well with grilled fish. Watermelon is a refreshing ingredient to use in a salsa. I’ve combined it with tomatoes and jicama here, and the result is a fruity/vegetal salsa with a kick from chiles, lime and cilantro. Like the other fruit-based salsas I’m featuring this week, I like this with rilled fish, especially light-fleshed fish like halibut or mahi-mahi.

Shredded Red-Chile Meat
Tortillas, which of course can be used in a variety of ways, are also potential tacos. This recipe for a kind of shredded chile-sauced meat — beef, pork, chicken or lamb — goes perfectly with homemade tortillas.

Grilled Mango Salsa
A mango’s rich flavor is deepened through grilling in this salsa full of contrasts. It also works if you do not want to grill the mango. I love mango salsa whether or not the mango is grilled, so if you don’t feel like grilling, you can still get a great salsa with these ingredients. Grilling, whether on an outdoor grill, a griddle or a grill pan, deepens the flavor of an already-rich-tasting fruit. I love the contrasts in this salsa: the crisp jicama with the soft, juicy mango; the sweet fruit; the spicy chile; and the grassy cilantro. Serve with fish or chicken.

Roasted Corn and Tomato Salsa
Grilling tomatoes, jalapeños and corn makes for a nice mix of flavors. The sweetness of the corn contrasts well with the charred and picante flavors of the salsa. I’ve added corn to salsa fresca before, but this time, eyeing generous ears of corn on the cob in the market, I imagined it grilled or roasted in a roasted tomato salsa. I used as a starting point the renowned chef Rick Bayless’s terrific roasted jalapeño tomato salsa with fresh cilantro, from a book he published in 1998 called “Salsas That Cook.” After I had grilled the tomatoes and jalapeño under a broiler (you could also cook them on a grill), I grilled an ear of corn, also under a broiler. The kernels take on a beautiful color, and their sweetness contrasts nicely with the charred and picante flavors that run through this salsa. The corn also contributes crunch. The salsa is great with tacos, chips, and grains, and is particularly good with chicken.

Salsa Fresca with Kohlrabi
Kohlrabi, with its crisp texture, is a pleasant surprise diced into this tomato salsa. It goes well with chips, nachos, tacos and quesadillas, or with fish and chicken. For the past month, I’ve been a guest on the New York Times’s Motherlode Blog, helping out Renee Ruder and her family in Bend, Ore., put more vegetarian meals on the table using produce they receive in their community-supported agriculture basket each week. She received kohlrabi one week and was at a loss as to what to do with it. I had some suggestions for ways to use the vegetable in main dishes, and now I’ve come up with a way to use it in a side. The kohlrabi has a crisp texture much like that of jicama, with a nice cruciferous flavor. This salsa fresca would be welcome with just about any tostada, nacho or taco, with chips, or as a condiment with fish or chicken.

Shortcut Tortilla Soup
This simplified version of the classic Mexican soup calls for storebought tortilla chips and employs the use of the broiler to char the chiles.

Veracruzana Crab Soup
This is an elegant soup that I’ve served at dinner parties as well as family dinners. It has a spicy depth of flavor, resulting from the combination of pickled capers, pickled jalapeños (don’t substitute fresh for canned here) and olives.

Turkey Soup With Lime and Chile
After the overindulgence that comes with Thanksgiving, you might want to try something a little lighter and brighter with your leftover meat. This is a version of sopa de lima, the restorative and delicious Mexican soup popular in the Yucatán. It is usually made with chicken and a local lime, but turkey and supermarket lime are a magical, timely substitute.

Turkey Mole Verde
A few things may come to mind when thinking of mole: chocolate, long ingredient lists and even longer cooking directions. But mole verde is a bit of an exception. This version comes together in about an hour, combining a pumpkin-and-sesame-seed paste with a sauce built from tomatillos, chard, romaine and jalapeños. Cooked turkey simmers in sauce just long enough to pick up some of the green flavors. For balance, serve with white rice and corn tortillas.

Mexican Shortbread Cookies

Avocado And Crab Meat Mousse
